When Mary Longpre filled out her photographer credential for the upcoming America's Cup, she submitted information about an important project.
Longpre, a Newport Beach resident and a Balboa Yacht Club member, will be in the process of completing a...

For surfers, everything hinges on balance — even when it comes to local politics.
A forum Monday night kicked off the public's involvement in a review of local surfing rules in Newport Beach. About 200 surfers of all ages, mostly male, filled...

Essays, videos and photographs from more than 200 Costa Mesa students proved there's no place quite like home for the city's youth.
Participants, some as young as fifth graders, participated in the fourth-annual contest by the Costa Mesa Library...

My memories of the Laguna firestorm of 1993 are still vivid, 20 years later.
I photographed the day of the burn, weeks of clean-up and the feature stories that followed. It was a distinctive career experience for me as a photographer, covering my...

They found the home listing in the PennySaver, of all places. Todd Porter and Diane Cu barely glanced at the interior of the run-down three-bedroom, two-bathroom house when they arrived for a walk-through, and instead they headed straight to the sprawling backyard overgrown with brush and suffocated by a giant pine.
"We looked at each other and said, 'This is it,'" Porter recalled.
The Costa Mesa backyard wasn't neat or squared off like Southern California yards are supposed to be. Instead, the 11,...

Shopping malls across America are preparing for Fashion's Night Out on Thursday. The evening, which launches the fall fashion season, has grown in stature. It has become not just a night of shopping, but a major social event on the calendars of cities and towns everywhere.
In Orange County, some of the more spectacular in-store happenings include an hors d'oeuvres reception at Tiffany & Co., South Coast Plaza, hosted by store director Michael Botsko joining forces with the highly regarded Capital...

FRIDAY
Soiree Tickets on Sale
Tickets are available for the upcoming third annual Holiday Soiree & Benefit being hosted by Newport-Mesa Unified school board Trustee Katrina Foley, in partnership with Mesa Restaurant, the Costa Mesa police and fire departments and the Costa Mesa High School Cheerleaders. The event's organizers are seeking canned food and coat donations. Donated cans will go to the Second Harvest Food Bank and coats will go to the Boys & Girls Club and the OC Interfaith Shelter....

SATURDAY
Piecemakers Festival
The Piecemakers Country Store, at 1720 Adams Ave. in Costa Mesa, continues with its Christmas Festival, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For more information, visit http://www.piecemakers.com or call (714) 641-3112.
Holiday Fun at SOCO
The South Coast Collection will be the place for a variety of family friendly holiday activities, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Activities include music, carolers, cookie decorating, a toy drive and the opportunity to meet top-ranked...

Journalists from Times Community News (TCN) South, which publishes the Daily Pilot, Huntington Beach Independent and Coastline Pilot, are finalists for six statewide journalism awards.
Reporters, photographers, editors and graphic designers placed first or second in their various circulation categories in the 2011 Better Newspaper Contest by the California Newspaper Publishers Assn (CNPA). Rankings will be announced at the CNPA's May 5 conference in San Jose.
The three newspapers also received nine...

Photographer John L. Blom, who has been taking custom portraits in Corona del Mar for more than three decades, has sold his East Coast Highway studio.
Blom said he will continue photography from his Newport Beach home, working with families by appointment and shooting on location.
"By mid-May, I won't be here anymore," he said. "I'm cutting back. My real love is photographing families and kids, and I'll do that more on location."
Blom studied photography at the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, then...

Costa Mesa is giving all you shutterbugs out there something else to shoot for this winter besides annual Christmas cards or vacation photos.
The city announced Monday its first Celebrate Costa Mesa photo contest, where amateur, professional and youth photographers can compete in six categories with prizes worth more than $1,000.
Photographers can enter six categories: characters (local people), environment (open spaces like parks, wildlife, landmarks), life (education, sports, night life events), pets,...